


ALA - YYZ

by theglitterati



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Punching, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theglitterati/pseuds/theglitterati
Summary: In which Otabek decks a racist homophobe.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 8
Kudos: 160





	ALA - YYZ

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [75% of me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658770) by [Solovei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solovei/pseuds/Solovei). 



Otabek leaned on the bar, nodding to the bartender. “Two club sodas, please.” No matter how much Yuri begged, or how many times he flashed his fake ID that said he was nineteen and Ukrainian, Otabek was not buying him alcohol.

The bar was hot and crowded, full of Torontonians screaming at a hockey game on the TV. Otabek was sweating in his Team Kazakhstan hoodie; he wished he’d worn something lighter. He paid cash for the drinks, grateful for the condensation they dripped on his hands, and turned to go back to the table where Yuri and a half dozen of the others from Skate Canada sat. As he did, he bumped into a guy behind him, just barely avoiding spilling his and Yuri’s drinks.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Yeah, watch it, buddy,” the guy said. He was big, white and blond but red in the face from drink, a Molson Canadian clutched in his hand.

“Sorry,” Otabek said again. He tried to get around the guy, but he wasn’t moving.

“You Chinese?” the guy said.

Otabek would have asked why on earth that mattered, but he already knew the answer. Around the drinks he was holding, he pointed at his shirt.

The guy’s eyes narrowed. “You speak English, Borat?”

Otabek clenched his teeth. “Very well.” English, and Kazakh, and Russian, and a little bit of French and Japanese, too. “Now, please, get out of my way.”

Drunk Guy leaned back, making a sour face. “What’s your fuckin’ problem, man?”

Otabek really, really did not want to be doing this. He looked over at his table, trying to catch the eye of someone who could step in and diffuse the situation. Instead, he saw a familiar blond head bobbing through the crowd in his direction. 

“Excuse me, please,” Otabek tried again. He couldn’t let Yuri get involved in this.

Too late. “Beka! What took so fucking long?” Yuri bellowed at him in Russian. He slid in between Otabek and the drunk guy, thin enough to squeeze through where Otabek couldn’t. He grabbed his drink and took a sip. “This isn’t vodka!”

“Yuri,” Otabek warned.

Drunk Guy looked amused. “This your boyfriend?”

“No,” Otabek started, but Yuri interrupted him. “Yes, I’m his boyfriend. Who the fuck are you?” He turned and looked at Otabek like, _can you believe this guy?_

“They’ll just let anyone in this country now, huh?” the guy said.

Yuri looked him up and down. “Apparently, since you’re here, you drunk, old, lobster-looking piece of dog shit.”

 _Fuck._ “Yuri, we need to go, now.” Otabek grabbed him by the arm, ready to push past the guy if necessary.

Unfortunately, Drunk Guy had the same idea. He grabbed Yuri by his shirt-collar. “What did you just say to me, you fucking fa—”

There was a crash as Otabek’s glass hit the floor, shattering at their feet. His vision narrowed to a tunnel which ended at Drunk Guy’s face. He watched in slow motion as his own fist connected with the guy’s jaw. The man stumbled back, but he still didn’t let go of Yuri’s shirt. Otabek hit him again, and this time, he went down on his knees.

Things got a bit blurry after that. Drunk Guy stood up, his lip dripping blood, and started yelling about how “this Arab” attacked him. Yuri, teeth bared, screamed back at him, half in English, half in Russian. A bouncer stepped in between them, while Otabek stood off to the side, dazed. Drunk Guy announced he was calling the cops. The rest of the skaters rushed over to find out what happened. Otabek looked down at his hand to find it bleeding. He’d never hit anybody before.

The cops showing up snapped Otabek out of it. He chilled when he saw them, expecting the worst. Instead, he got lucky; one of the cops actually was Arab, and Otabek caught his eyes widening just a little when Drunk Guy — whose name, Otabek learned, was Steve — called Kazakhstan part of the Middle East. But Otabek did punch him, in front of about a hundred witnesses, and Steve insisted he was pressing charges. In the end, it was JJ who smoothed things over, flashing his perfect, white smile and his famous, white face to make everything go away. The cops kicked them all out of the bar, Steve included, and sent them home.

Yuri started yelling the second they got in the Uber. “I can’t believe that piece of shit called the _politsiya!_ After what he said to you, and to me! That fucker called me a faggot! I thought Canada was supposed to be civilized, or is everyone here an asshole like you, JJ?” He snarled at JJ, who sat on the other side of Otabek, but his heart wasn’t in it. JJ had saved Otabek tonight, and Yuri knew it.

“There’s bad people everywhere,” Chris said from the front seat.

“Still,” Yuri protested, “you should be able to press charges against _him_ for being racist, not to mention being an ugly motherfu—”

“Yuri,” Otabek said wearily. “Stop.”

When they reached the hotel, Otabek let Yuri go ahead of him, hanging back to walk with JJ. “Thank you,” he told him.

JJ smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

“No, really,” Otabek said. “Thank you.”

JJ did a weird half-shrug. “No problem, man. Being a good guy is very JJ-style,” he added with a wink.

Otabek snorted. “Okay.” He left JJ in the lobby and went up to his room.

He found Yuri sitting on his bed, his extra key card tossed on the dresser. All of his bravado from the car was gone. “Are you okay, Beka?”

Otabek nodded. He went into the bathroom instead of joining Yuri, washing his hands and coming back out with a plastic bucket.

Yuri got up. “I’ll get it,” he said, taking the ice bucket and leaving the room. Otabek flopped on the bed. He probably should have disinfected the cut on his hand, but he was too tired. Punching someone really took it out of him.

Yuri came back, padding across the room in sock feet. He wrapped a few ice cubes in a washcloth and wrapped that around Otabek’s hand, gently kissing it when he was done. Otabek smiled, but didn’t say anything.

“You want to watch TV?” Yuri asked, after a few minutes of silence.

“No, thanks.”

Yuri’s nose wrinkled. “Are you sad?”

Otabek considered it. “A little bit.”

“Because of what he said to me?”

“Yes.”

“Because of what he said to you?”

Otabek just shrugged.

“Did people say those things when you lived here?” Yuri’s voice had gone quiet. “Call you Borat, things like that?”

Otabek shrugged again. “Sometimes. It was worse when I lived in America, because I still went to regular school. No one there had never heard of Kazakhstan, so I was just weird to them.”

“Pieces of shit,” Yuri muttered.

“I didn’t have many friends,” Otabek admitted. He still didn’t. It wasn’t something he liked to think about.

“When I moved here,” he continued, “there was a tutor who taught me and the other skaters, so I didn’t have to go to school anymore. It was better. But I still didn’t spend a lot of time with anyone.”

“But you’re back in Almaty now!” Yuri said.

Otabek sighed. “Yeah, it’s nice being back. But I don’t really know anyone other than my family. All the friends I had when I was a kid are gone. And I've lived abroad for so long that I don’t get all the things people my age talk about.” Not to mention there were things about himself he couldn’t talk about there at all, at least not in public. “It’s funny, I am ‘the Hero of Kazakhstan,’ but there’s so much about it I don’t understand.” He paused. This wasn’t the kind of thing he usually told people. But Yuri was listening carefully, those pouty lips of his pursed, so Otabek continued. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong anywhere,” he said.

Yuri snuggled closer to him. “You belong with me,” he said. “Me and Victor and Katsudon and even stupid JJ. Skating is where you belong.”

Otabek leaned into Yuri, pressing his lips to the top of his head. Skating wasn’t a place he could stay forever, but for now, it was almost enough.

He moved a hand to play with Yuri’s hair, then suddenly remembered something. “Hey, why did you tell that guy you were my boyfriend?”

Yuri turned around to face him. “Am I not your boyfriend?”

“We hadn’t talked about it,” Otabek said.

“What, so you don’t want me to be your boyfriend?!”

“I do want you to be,” Otabek clarified. “I just said we hadn’t talked about it.”

“Well… now we’ve talked about it!” Yuri’s voice rose. “So am I your boyfriend or not?!”

“Yeah, okay,” Otabek said. He couldn’t help blushing. 

Yuri grinned. “Cool. You know, as your _boyfriend_ , it was very hot watching you punch that piece of shit.”

“Was it?”

“Yes. Defending my honour with your big muscles. Very sexy. Next time, you can watch, and I’ll kick some ass.”

Otabek was about to protest that there really shouldn’t _be_ a next time when Yuri leaned in and kissed him, dragging him down on the pillows.

Afterwards, Yuri fell asleep on Otabek’s chest, snoring like a chainsaw. Otabek glanced around the dark hotel room. With the blinds drawn, and the bland decor, they could have been anywhere in the world. But under the covers with Yuri, it felt a little bit like home.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at kyrstin.tumblr.com.


End file.
